In May when we visited friends in Kelowna, I told my husband that it was my last time driving there. I wasn’t sure if I hated the drive because of the construction detour or the fact we brought our dog who howled the entire 7 hours. Well, we are back, driving west to see our friends.  This time, there was no detour, and we left the dog behind, and I figured out why I hate travelling by car. It’s the road signs.  Specifically, two types of road signs.

The first sign are the crosses. The sign that someone else lost a loved one to a highway crash. Someone else walks this journey beside me. Even though I know not of them, I sigh, whispering “I am so sorry” under my breath.  I can’t enjoy the majestic scenery my husband reminds me of.  We are in God’s Country.  And where was God then?

The second, and more personal, are the dozens of road signs stating, “Passing Lane 2KM”. You wait for these expanded areas to pass slower moving vehicles safely.  Here, you are not as likely to have an oncoming vehicle in your lane.  It is this sign that was at Zane’s crash site.  It haunts me to this day; 2 km and my boy would have been safe.  2km was all he had to travel before the divided highway would have kept him apart from the other driver crossing the centre line. 2km and he may have survived. Every time we drive by one of these signs, I can feel my heart explode and my hands grip the wheel tighter and my jaw clenches. I am a ball of angry bitter tension by the time we reach our destination.  These road signs kill me emotionally.

It’s true that our life is all about bittersweet.  When I see a feather or balloon, a sweet sign from Zane, I am elated. Connected. When I see a bitter sign, like one of these road signs, I am reminded of my truth. The ugly truth. A grief warrior’s life is a yin and yang of bitter and sweet. It is part of grief. I must remember this. The bitter signs are just that.  They are signs of what happened. They are part of the story but not the whole story.  And I can choose which signs I want to focus on, the ones that elate me or those that crush me.

Our trip home I will experiment with this concept. I will search for the sweet signs that I know are also there. I will watch the skies and the countryside and the mountains for clues that Zane is with me. This is an exercise in choosing how I look at life and I wish to see it with my boy, riding next to me, past the signs that repeat he is not physically here.